2. False Alternatives at the Extremes

As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and it will always be ­impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are ­produced by the creative power of the mind, or are ­derived from the author of our being. —David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature[p 68] [p 69] Middle ground? We cannot study epistemology long without discovering that several of the debates that have arisen in this area of philosophy each present us with two extreme positions and invite us to choose between them. Here are some of those extremes: I. Idealism and realism II. Knowledge is subjective and knowledge is objective III. Rationalism and empiricism IV. Reason and faith In this chapter we will consider I and II and spend longer on III, especially as it pertains to John Locke and David Hume. Our next chapter will be given over to Immanuel Kant's contribution to epistemology, and we will give the following chapter over to IV. Common sense might at once suggest that, as so often in life, the truth lies neither at one extreme nor the other, but somewhere in the middle. In the course of ...